Linguistic innovations that arise contemporaneously in highly distant locations, such as quotative be like, have been termed 'global linguistic variants'. This is not necessarily to suggest fully global usage, but to invoke more general themes of globalisation vis-a-vis space and time. This research area has grown steadily in the last twenty years, and by asserting a role for mass media, researchers have departed intrepidly from sociolinguistic convention. Yet they have largely relied on quite conventional sociolinguistic methodologies, only inferring media influence post hoc. This methodological conservatism has been overcome recently, but uncertainty remains about the overall shape of the new epistemological landscape. In this paper, I review existing research on global variants, and propose an epistemological model for researching media influence in language change: the mediated innovation model. I also analyse the way arguments are constructed in existing research, including the use of rhetorical devices to plug empirical gaps -a worthy sociolinguistic topic in its own right.Les innovations linguistiques qui emergent simultan ement dans diff erentes r egions du monde, telles que les verbes introducteurs be like par exemple, ont et e r ecemment appel ees des 'variantes linguistiques universelles'. Ceci ne sugg ere pas n ecessairement l'existence d'un usage mondial a part enti ere, mais plutôt l'invocation de th emes plus larges sur la mondialisation en mati ere d'espace et de temps. Ce domaine de recherche a connu un d eveloppement r egulier au cours de ces vingt derni eres ann ees, et en revendiquant le rôle que peuvent jouer les m edias de masse, les sociolinguistes se sont eloign es avec une certaine intr epidit e des conventions caract eristiques de leur domaine. Pourtant, ces derniers ont bien employ e des m ethodes d'analyse sociolinguistique conventionnelles, mais inf erant l'influence des m edias uniquement apr es coup. les travaux de recherche qui traitent de ces variantes universelles et de proposer un mod ele epist emologique destin e a la recherche sur l'influence des m edias dans les processus linguistiques du changement appel e en anglais 'the mediated innovation model', c'est-a-dire un mod ele d'innovations v ehicul ees par les m edias. Dans le même temps, le pr esent article vise a etudier la mani ere dont les arguments sont construits dans ces travaux de recherche, par exemple par le biais de proc ed es rh etoriques, afin de corriger les insuffisances empiriques -en somme un sujet de sociolinguistique qui m erite certainement toute notre attention. [French]

New language technologies are coming, thanks to the huge and competing private investment fuelling rapid progress; we can either understand and foresee their effects, or be taken by surprise and spend our time trying to catch up. This report scketches out some transformative new technologies that are likely to fundamentally change our use of language. Some of these may feel unrealistically futuristic or far-fetched, but a central purpose of this report - and the wider LITHME network - is to illustrate that these are mostly just the logical development and maturation of technologies currently in prototype. But will everyone benefit from all these shiny new gadgets? Throughout this report we emphasise a range of groups who will be disadvantaged and issues of inequality. Important issues of security and privacy will accompany new language technologies. A further caution is to re-emphasise the current limitations of AI. Looking ahead, we see many intriguing opportunities and new capabilities, but a range of other uncertainties and inequalities. New devices will enable new ways to talk, to translate, to remember, and to learn. But advances in technology will reproduce existing inequalities among those who cannot afford these devices, among the world’s smaller languages, and especially for sign language. Debates over privacy and security will flare and crackle with every new immersive gadget. We will move together into this curious new world with a mix of excitement and apprehension - reacting, debating, sharing and disagreeing as we always do. Plug in, as the human-machine era dawns.

Phoenix from the Ashes Reconstructed Cornish in relation to Einar Haugen's four-step model of language standardisation

The last recorded native speaker of the Cornish language died in 1777. Since the nineteenth century, amateur scholars have made separate attempts to reconstruct its written remains, each creating a different orthography. Later, following recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, Cornish gained new status. However, with government support came the governmental framework of "New Public Management", which emphasises quantifiable outcomes to measure performance. This built implicit pressure towards finding a single standard orthography, for greatest efficiency. What followed was a six year debate among supporters of the different orthographies, usually quite heated, about which should prevail. This debate exemplified the importance of standardisation for minority languages, but its ultimate conclusion saw all sides giving way, and expediency, not ideology, prevailing. It also showed that standardisation was not imposed explicitly within language policy, but emerged during the language planning process. (Cornish language, standardisation, language reconstruction, New Public Management)The county of Cornwall comprises the southwest tip of mainland England, with a population of half a million and a history of heavy mining. It is now mostly post-industrial, and part of the poorest region in England (ONS 2010

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The Welsh Assembly, a devolved legislature in the UK, and its executive the Welsh Government, have a distinctly intensive commitment to equality – emphasising universality with weighty obligations on public services. This article uses the ‘discourse-historical approach’ (DHA) to critically review an eleven-year social service reform strategy (produced in 2007), and to weigh up its emphasis on fiscal efficiency and universal equality. We refer to these competing priorities as ‘speeding up’ and ‘reaching out’, respectively. Our findings show an imbalance towards the former, largely sidelining the possible value of services to those currently under-served. The article discusses this mismatch in respect of the dominant policymaking framework of ‘New Public Management’ and its emphases on productivity, efficiency, and quantifiable accountability. We also show the value of DHA in analysing ‘fights for dominance’ – in this case between competing discourses within a flagship policy document.